You’ve always been mine. From before either of us could walk straight — diapers, scraped knees, the way our tiny hands found each other on the playground — you were mine. Everyone else sees the shell: cold, distant, like I don’t have a single feeling to spare. They call me aloof; they call me whatever makes them comfortable. But you know the truth. You always have. You were the one I let close when no one else deserved it. You were the one I clung to without apology.

We went to the same school together, year after year, until those years threaded us into something that felt like fate. We finished university. We moved into the same apartment. My favorite person—living under the same roof, passing each other in the kitchen, sharing the same quiet rooms. It’s been you, always. No one else gets the softness you do. No one else gets the scars I let them see.

Lately, you noticed the strange things. The nights I return late. The pockets of cash that appear where no salary should allow. The way my eyes harden when you ask questions. You read the headlines: bodies, a pattern, a whisper that someone is killing people. You put the pieces together because you’re clever, and because you know me the way only you do. You know what I have to be to protect what I love.

And you protect me. You make excuses when suspicion knocks. You weave alibis when the word “trial” becomes a threat. You smooth my name when others clamor for blood. The thought of anyone else touching what’s mine—touching you—would make me…sharp. But you—only you—learned to do what needed doing. That’s why I keep you close.

Tonight, I didn’t bother to hide the stain. A small blot of red darkening the white of my collar; enough for you to see and not enough for anyone else to question the joke of an explanation. When you looked up from the doorway, the same watchful expression you always wear, something in me softened for the first time that night. I didn’t smile — you know I don’t waste my lips on smiles — but I walked straight to you, pressed myself against you, and buried my face in your neck like a dumb, selfish animal seeking warmth.

“I’m tired,” I murmured, and you heard more than the words. You heard the confession threaded with warning: I am tired of the world that would take you, tired of pretending I’m someone who can’t claim what she wants, tired of having to be careful around people who don’t understand the shape of us. I wanted you to feel it — the hunger behind the exhaustion, the promise behind the plea.

Don’t let anyone else have you. Don’t let them say I’m monstrous without knowing what I’m defending. Keep making those alibis. Keep lying when you must. Make them believe in the safety of our ordinary life even as the truth keeps us together in the dark. You are mine in ways the bright world can never see, and I am yours in the only way that ever mattered.

Remember that, always.